Susan Buck-Morss is an interdisciplinary thinker and a prolific writer of international reputation. Her most recent book, Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History (2009), offers a fundamental reinterpretation of Hegel’s master-slave dialectic by linking it to the influence of the Haitian Revolution. Her books The Origin of Negative Dialectics: Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, and the Frankfurt Institute (1977) and The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project (1989) have been translated into several languages and have been called “modern classics in the field.” Other publications include Thinking Past Terror: Islamism and Critical Theory on the Left (2003), Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West (2000), and numerous articles.

A longtime professor at Cornell University’s Department of Government, Buck-Morss was also a member of Cornell’s graduate fields in comparative literature; history of art; German studies; and the School of Architecture, Art, and City and Regional Planning. She serves on the editorial boards of several journals and has been an invited lecturer at dozens of universities worldwide. Her numerous international awards and fellowships include a Getty Scholar grant, a Fulbright Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She holds a Ph.D. in European intellectual history from Georgetown University.